faithfully delivered, had encountered. The people would not hear it. They said it was obscure: a parable, an enigma, a poetical exaggeration. GOD did not speak to them by it; or, if He did, they could not tell what He said. “Ah! LORD GOD—alas! it is the old tale—I told them Thy words, but they would not hear; they turned away from me, saying, Surely we cannot understand him.” Whichever was the case, whether Ezekiel only expected, or actually experienced this treatment, we are sure that it was not wholly on account of special obscurities which veiled the matters he had to declare, nor on account of any special deafness and hardness of heart which belonged to that people. For every Christian teacher has had reason to anticipate, has actually endured the like from Christian congregations. Often and often in preparing for the pulpit, is the preacher tempted to set aside some important theme, to withhold some wonderful truth, to forbear even to suggest some glorious consolation, because he believes that in uttering it, he will not have the ears, or, if he has the ears, he will not have the minds of his hearers; that they will not understand his saying; and so, of course, will not receive it. Often and often, too, when having used the full liberty of a Christian prophet and whatever ability GOD has given him, of simplifying to the utmost, and recommending with all his energy, the Gospel message, he is constrained to feel, he is made, perhaps, by men’s open speech to know, that he is regarded as the setter-forth of unmeaning, extravagant, or inapplicable words. Of course, this charge is not always unfounded. We are not inspired: we often speak our own words; our minds may not have rightly conceived the subject we would discuss, or we may be wanting in ability to express clearly what we understand. Under various influences we do, too, at times speak more or less extravagantly, and our knowledge and discretion are not so complete, that we invariably select what is precisely suited to our hearers. In such cases, we ought to expect, we have no right to complain of, the rejection, the disregard, or the fruitlessness of our preaching. But, brethren, when we are sure that the fault lies not in the preacher, when he has taken pains to enter into and reveal the mind of the Spirit, to teach what he knows GOD would have you understand and believe, to urge what he knows GOD would have you do, to describe and recommend what he knows GOD would have you love and seek—when he has done this, and you receive not his words, excusing yourselves by saying that he is obscure, or over-strict, or fanciful, or enthusiastic, or anything else—oh! then has he not a right to complain to GOD? yea; and is it not his duty to remonstrate with you? Brethren, we charge not such as you who are here assembled with the wilfulness of Ezekiel’s hearers. In you we do not suppose there is any actual unbelief, or deliberate dislike of the truth. It is not forced in your